Stain
by The Maze Writer
Summary: The Maze broke him. The Scorch destroyed him. The Cure killed him.
1. Thomas

I was so many things, to so many people. Thomas, Tom, Tommy.

Leader, Best friend, Glader, Brother.

The one that called me Tom, sacrificed herself for me.

The one that called me Tommy, got the flare and I shot him.

The one that called me Brother, died saving my life.

The person everyone else knew as Thomas, got lost along the way. Dead. Ripped apart. Broken. Gone.

Just a torn soul that got taken away by the breeze.

WICKED is good. What a joke. It's in the name. WICKED is wicked.

They never had any good intentions.

Just to break us.

Strong leader. Ha. I'm just a kid. We're all just kids.

Kids put in life or death situations.

Fighting monsters, horrible places, dying friends.

We're all just dust in the wind, paper people, chess pawns.

I can't help thinking that I'd like to join Newt. Go where I'm not holding the weight of the world.

But there's Minho. He's the only string holding me to this earth. And that string is straining against the weight..

I promised him. Promised him I'd stay with him.

I'm always alone now. I isolate myself in silence. I can't bear to see the others.

Minho is the only one who visits. Mostly it's to give me food. Or try and give me food. For the most part it's just him begging me to eat until I choke down a few bites just to please him. He tries to get me out of the shed. No sunlight ever comes in here, and I'm paler than a ghost from the lack of vitamin D. But the sunlight represents happiness and joy and I haven't felt either of those for a long, long time. The blinding light burns my eyes and gives my headaches.

I'm causing Minho too much stress. He has dark circles under his eyes and he's constantly running his hand through his hair. In between being a leader to the immune's, he's mothering me, trying to get me to say more than a few words. He knows something is wrong, it's obvious. But I haven't told him what it is yet. I don't think I will. He doesn't need the worry. Not now.

Anyway, it's not like there's only one thing wrong.

Chuck was my brother. He was the closest thing I had to family in the Maze. He was so young, so innocent, and so selfless. He wanted to find his Mom and Dad. But he sacrificed himself for me. I'm sorry Chuck. I failed you. I promised you I'd get you out. I promised you I'd help you find your Mom and Dad. I'm so sorry it had to end that way.

I loved Teresa. And now she's dead. Because of me. I didn't forgive her when I had the chance. She was just doing what she thought was best. I saw the pain in her eyes every day when she looked at me, but I didn't care. I was selfish.

And Newt. My best friend. I never realized how important and special he was to me until I lost him. The Maze broke him. The Scorch destroyed him. The Cure killed him. The pain and desperation in his eyes was too much to bear. He wanted out. So I helped him.

They talk about moving on like it's easy. Release your grip finger by finger. But my hand has been in a fist for so long it stuck there, unable to open. I'm never going to get over them. I'm never going to forget. They'll be in my thoughts every day. I'll be forever be sorry. If that means I'll never fully heal, that's fine with me.

I thought the whole point of those shucking trials was to find a cure and get our memories back. Am I the only one who noticed that we failed? Trillions of people are going to die. Only a few thousand are going to live. That's what's going to be left of the human race. And none of the teenagers who went through the trials have their memories. I don't know where I'm from, who I am, who my family are. A lot of our friends died for us to make it this far. But for what? We failed. If Newt had stayed in the glade he ever would have been exposed to the virus. He would be alive.

And on top of all that, I was part of them. Part of WICKED. I helped them. I put my friends in the Maze. I built it. I broke them. I can't help feeling that if I hadn't put him in there, Newt wouldn't have tried to kill himself.

Only when a a hear a soft splash on the floor do I realize I'm crying. Again. I'm surprised I have any water left in me at this point. Crying has become a regular thing to me now, as normal as breathing.

I have sacrificed too much. Lost everyone I cared about.

"Please, Tommy please."

"I only ever cared for-"

"Find...My mom..."

Their last words haunt me, taunt me.

Please. I can't... I can't do this anymore.

I crawl on my elbows and knees to a pile of old clothes. I start digging frantically, wanting to get the deed done before Minho arrived. My hand brushes the cold metal and I grasp the handle.

It's the gun I killed Newt with.

Slowly, I pull it from the pile of clothes.

I hold it in front of me feeling the weight. Is this really the right thing? I ask myself.

Yes. I'm ready. Minho is strong, he'll heal. He doesn't need me. Nobody does.

I had to be brave for so long. People were counting on me. Now there's no one left.

I bring the gun to my temple. I'm sorry Minho. I'm sorry you'll have to find me this way. Bury me next to them, alright? This is not your fault. You helped me more than you can imagine. But this was too much. Don't think of me as a desperate kid looking for a way out. Think of me as I once was. Strong, bold, brave. You were one of the best shanks I knew.

Thank you for being my friend.


	2. Minho

**A/N: Here is the much wanted part 2! I wasn't going to even write this, but about a week ago I got a really good idea and I decided to write it up.**

 **Also, for any of you reading "It's for the greater good," keep an eye out for a "new" chapter. ( It's not exactly new, I'm adding and removing a lot from that last chapter becasue I messed up the first time.)**

A shot wrings through the field.

My head whips up immediately. Everyone else is quite unconcerned, they are used to gunshots by now.

I'm not though. These last few months have left me paranoid, forever afraid of what could be coming.

I use my years of maze training to sense where the sound is coming from.

My left.

I turn my head and directly in my line of view, is Thomas's shed.

I almost throw the shovel off myself as I run as if a griever itself was chasing me.

As I touched the cool metal of the handle, felt the termers still going through it, I knew.

Thomas was dead.

He had killed himself.

I had to steady myself on the doorframe as a sobs started to rack though my body.

Hot tears burn my cheeks as I try to bite back the horrible emotions.

In the next second I had opened the door and stumbled inside.

There he was.

Blood stained his hair, his clothes, and the ground.

His glassy, unseeing eyes still looked troubled.

All air left my lungs.

My chest burned as if my very heart had caught fire.

The next thing I knew my knees had buckled, and I was on my hands and knees in the hard dirt.

Sobs were racking through my body so hard I thought my ribs were going to break.

They say you look peaceful when you die, but "they", have never seen Thomas.

The bloody hole in his temple, his still tearstained cheeks, the gun still lying in his limp hand.

I tried to stop it, but I couldn't.

A horrible, almost animal cry rips though my throat and I fall forward, onto his cold, unmoving, chest.

In that moment I didn't care that I was covered with blood. I didn't care that it was HIS blood.

I lost them.

Both of them.

The gun, it still looked so unnatural in his hand.

Gingerly I flicked it from his limp hand, not wanting to touch the evil metal more than I had too.

And too think, if I had only come in two minutes earlier, I might have been able to stop him.

Just that though led me to let out a strangled cry, my breaths started to come faster until I had to lean away from Thomas so I didn't retch on him.

"Shuck face," I choke, trying to smile even though nothing was funny.

My whole body felt cold. I knew that it was unlikely that Thomas's body was cold yet, but my own body seemed too frozen to detect any heat.

Now on my hands and knees, I dig my forehead into the ground and shut my eyes tight.

I can't look at him.

I can't bare it.

Why me? Why am I the one still alive? I don't deserve it.

And WICKED. They took everything from me.

Thomas, Newt, Alby, Chuck, everyone.

They took my life, my family, my name, my identity.

There, sick, twisted games were the reason Newt tried to kill himself, and Thomas did kill himself.

WICKED was right about one thing though.

I was never the leader.

That was Thomas.

He became our hope, our beacon of light.

He was brave selfless, and intelligent. He was our hero.

So now, looking at his bloody, bruised and broken body, everything becomes too much.

It's like someone was laughing at me, mocking me.

Ha ha, you're immune. Ha ha, you're in charge now. Ha ha, look after your mentally unstable friend while your other one roams the streets until his brain is eaten by the virus.

Ha ha, you want to die, but you can't.

God damn, when did everything go to hell?

…

Today's the day.

I cleaned him up, washed the blood from his face and neck. Some of the builders made a wooden casket and when it was ready, I picked him up and placed him in it. He was so light I wondered briefly when the last time he ate was. When he was in it, I arranged his hands so they were crossed over his stomach. Some little kids Thomas helped made him a flower crown to cover the hole in his temple.

He almost looked peaceful.

With him in the nicest clothes we could find in the place he looked like the best dressed dead person ever. Even his hair had been washed.

In the end I had to rip myself away from his side.

I wandered around aimlessly as I waited for the ceremony to start. I couldn't think. It was all I could do to stand.

Then the ceremony started.

We had Aris, Brenda, and Frypan help with the ceremony as they were the only ones even remotely close to knowing Thomas like I did.

Aris was the first one to speak. His eyes were read and puffy and it was pretty obvious he had been crying.

Then Brenda went, then Frypan.

Their words blurred together as I struggled to keep my focus.

"Minho?" someone was shaking my arm. Brenda.

"You're up."

I nodded numbly and stumbled onto the stage.

Everyone was staring at me, some with pity, some with remorse, some with compassion.

Quickly, I block them all out and focus on the one person that matters.

"Thomas? Well, he was my best friend. He was compassionate, smart, and brave. When I couldn't be the leader, he took over for me. I, _we,_ tried to protect everybody. I couldn't do it alone, and neither could he. When he got stuck in the tunnels with Brenda, I tried to do the job by myself."

"But," I take a quivering breath, "I couldn't save everyone."

I swallow, remembering their faces as they flash through my mind.

"Thomas was one of those people that fell through the cracks. He got trapped and killed by his own thoughts, his own misconceptions. It's horrible if you think about it. To not know how much you're loved…."

I trail off.

"I tried to help these last few weeks. For a while I thought he was going to be ok, that he just needed some time, after all, Teresa had just been killed and we had just left Newt behind. But I guess I was wrong. I still want to ask him what happened, but it's kind of hard to ask a dead guy what went wrong. "

I walk off the stage until I'm right in front of the casket.

"Thomas, I'm really going to miss you. Thank you for being there for me and Newt, even if you were a little in the dark about him. You didn't know him like I did, but let me tell you, as soon as you came up from the box, he started getting better. Thank you for taking care of Chuck, he really did love you like a brother. And most of all, thank you for being there for me, for saving everyone and myself on multiple occasions. You really are the reason we're all here."

I lean in and whisper in his ear.

"This isn't goodbye ok? I'm never letting you go."

I let my tears drip into his hair as I slid my fingers over his eyelids and close them.

There, now he could be sleeping.

I removed the rose from my pocket and place it on his chest.

I take one long last look at him, turn, and run as fast as I can, bursting through the door as I lose it completely.

…

I sit on the hill as the sun sets over the meadow, the grass having got watered by my tears, my sobs finally subsided.

No one had bothered me, and for that I was grateful.

I knew that by now Thomas was six feet underground, and it tore me up.

I also knew I wasn't going to be able to ignore it forever, I had a gravestone to plant after all.

 _Here lies Thomas, and we will never forget him._

Someone taps on my shoulder and I almost jump out of my skin.

It's Aris.

"Minho," starts Aris hesitantly. His eyes are puffy and red and it's obvious that whatever he's about to say is bugging him.

"You know how Thomas, Teresa, and I could….. speak in each other's heads?"

"Yeah?" My heart started to beat faster.

"Well….. I heard him that day."

"What?"

"I was hanging around the gravestones, and then out of nowhere he's in my head, screaming. I don't even know how it happened, we're not supposed to be able to talk to each other unless we want to, and he defiantly wasn't directing anything at me."

"What did he say?" I was trying so hard to control myself that I was physically shaking.

"At first I couldn't tell, like I said, there was screaming and shrieking. Then there was a lot of sobbing. It was horrible, he sounded like he was in so much pain."

I swallowed hard. Aris was already crying, the tears rolling silently down his cheeks.

"But then he started thinking something that was obviously directed at you."

"Aris! Don't mess around man! Just tell me!"

"I'm sorry Minho. I'm sorry you'll have to find me this way. Bury me next to them, alright? This is not your fault. You helped me more than you can imagine. But this was too much. Don't think of me as a desperate kid looking for a way out. Think of me as I once was. Strong, bold, brave. You were one of the best shanks I knew.

Thank you for being my friend."

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